Indigo jet lands with smoking wheel, 9 injured

It was a close shave for 154 passengers on board an IndiGo jet that had to be immediately evacuated upon landing at the IGI airport on Wednesday after it started spewing ‘dense smoke’.

IndiGo flight 6E-176 from Mumbai, carrying 148 passengers and six crew members, touched down in Delhi at 3.35pm when air traffic controllers saw the smoke.

The passengers were evacuated in 75 seconds through emergency slide-chutes. Around nine were injured while exiting the 18-month-old A320 plane. A source said that one passenger had suffered a fracture.

Sources said hydraulic fuel had leaked on to the ‘wheel well area’, which becomes extremely hot during landing, causing smoke. The DGCA has ordered a probe and an official said “there was no fire. The smoke came from the left brake assembly of the plane’s landing gear”.

The airline also stated: “There was no fire and this was not an emergency or priority landing.”